The Daily Mail is a large-scale professional troll, and this article is troll-bait of the highest order—a master stroke of carefully orchestrated misogyny. It basically screams, “HERE, TROLLS! DON’T YOU HATE THIS AWFUL BITCH? LOOK, SHE THINKS SHE’S BETTER THAN YOU BUT SHE ISN’T EVEN PRETTY!” It begs women to go all mean-girl on her (every woman I spoke to succumbed to the temptation immediately), gives men a pass to comment on the relative value and fuckability of her body, and encourages both sexes to eviscerate, body-shame, and judge Brick with impunity because her ideas are so repellant.

For the Daily Mail to put such an obviously average woman (whose self-regard transcends confidence and becomes something close to paranoid delusion) on display like this, with crazy ideas like this, on a platform like this, feels uncomfortably close to bullying. And it makes Brick pitiable.

By giving Samantha Brick miles of rope and an extremely public tree, the Daily Mail is trying to trollify us all. It’s a little peek behind the curtain at how the media deliberately pits women against women for fun and profit. Fuck that. Ladies, let’s stop biting.